My rearview mirror

Next year would ring in a lively gubernatorial contest. I’m sure political pundits have begun reviewing the landscape to see how to approach public relations stunts for the multitude.

Would it be met with voter enthusiasm or apathy? Take a quick glance at your own backyard and see if people aren’t gagging from the smell of rotting fish you’ve grandly placed in their midst!

About the only way I could rate the performance of this administration fairly is from a rearview mirror. I’m not sure if I would miss anything after the failed promise of the “solutions driven” team. But it has succeeded in its disoriented ways as a result of the lack of a fully thought-out set of plans.

Incumbent Raffy Torres turns into an open target. Assorted arrows would be flying into his camp. Would he prevail, come out flat-footed or meet fatal injury, remains to be seen. Like food, you’re what you eat!

Boysis: At year’s end, we’d take a glimpse at the performance of legislators on matters of substance. It’s timely that we begin chopping kitchen staff! There are too many chefs cooking the same pot of rice and some are even clueless of it all.

Most aren’t sure what policymaking entails while some have braved asking for legal analysis of sorts just to sound suspiciously intelligent. Is it ignorance or the complete resistance to learning by the elected elite that has paralyzed the NMI?

EVERbody home? We ponder why people we elected to dispose of matters of state have retreated to a safe place, where never is heard an encouraging word and the skies are cloudy all day.

The term “suena” means noise of some sort heard during dead silence, like in the wee hours of the morning. But I haven’t heard anything out of the ordinary. Wonder what the deafening silence is all about? It piques my curiosity and is somewhat concerning.

Across the street, Lt. Gov. Biktot Hokog flexes his suspect diction as to regurgitate useless irrelevant materials. Yawn!

Meanwhile, the elected elite puts on a fine show in D.C., donning winter suits during summer to appeal to members of Congress on the CW-2 issue. None has taken the time to do some cursory review of U.S. Public Law 110-229.

How would your appeal fly against Trump’s seven most anti-immigration people, headed by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions? Did you guys size this up or “not yet, already?”

“For the people”: Admirable the even temperament of Rep. Angel Demapan, who has called funding the new legislative salary of $75,000 per year unimportant or non-priority. Outstanding call, sir!

He’s one person who understands fiduciary duty with full view that the legislature has governance it has grandly failed to represent. He’s saying put more money into the pocketbooks of families, especially the 51 percent of employees now earning poverty level income and below. Not do-nothing solons.

High school: It’s a noble idea to build a high school on the northern side of the island. Rep. Alice Igitol is diligently following up on the proposal. It faces the major hurdle of funding but like the proverbial thousand-mile journey she’s taken the first step. It requires key players meeting to hash out this aspect of the plan.

Theft: It’s very unsettling to hear that the Kagman farm plots involve local lessors subleasing the property to foreign farmers and others. This as the number of applicants pile up, waiting for plots too.

In its simplest form this is theft! Reason? You’re making money from indigenous public land, right? DPL must move in and rescind such leases and turn the land over to local farmers now on the waiting list.

Unbridled: Rep. Leepan thinks unbridled expansion is “moving in the right direction.” Is the degradation of quality of life, coupled by a single fickle economic engine, moving in the right direction? Ever heard of economic diversification?

If perchance you understand the concept shouldn’t this be the “right direction?” Have you lifted a finger to ensure planned growth that would allow our people to live and prosper in a clean and healthy environment?

CHamoru chant

Culture involves practices of a certain people passed to generations. They eventually settle into what’s known as tradition. It enhances the livelihood of the community over the years.

Recently, there was born the humiliating so-called Chamorro chant. It seems to have been embraced with ignorance that perpetuates a deceitful fabrication of what was never cultural since our ancestral days.

Historically, the indigenous Chamorro was displaced right at home by four colonial powers: Spain, Germany, Japan, and now the U.S. Each imposed vicious orders to annihilate everything indigenous, including the local language.

It’s a vicious environment under which our ancestors had to deal with survival daily. Throughout each colonial period they had to strive to unravel layers of impositions to adapt another’s culture over their very own. So it became a dual unraveling of cultures, theirs and ours, for over 500 years.

The displacements left islanders homeless at home and did everything it could to preserve what is rightfully its culture. Removing the layers of imposition of another’s culture remains a nuisance to date.

Mr. Francisco B. Rabon, so-called founder of Chamoru Chant, claims he pulled it out of his Austronesian research work. Well, there are 1,200 Austronesian languages. He also claimed to have visited islands throughout the Pacific in search of his chant.

I’ve been all over too as the NMI delegate to the South Pacific Commission. I fail to see anything resembling even a hint of CHamoru Chant north and south of the equator!